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The night was quiet. Crickets chirped and frogs croaked in the area around the caern, and every so often you could hear the squeaks of a bat as it swooped by, hunting for mosquitoes. Such was the symphony that all of Skybound Cedar slept to, or at very least, lay awake listening to in the dark. As it happened, one such waking soul was the kinfolk who called herself Midnight, curled tightly into her beloved companion, wishing rest would come to her but finding no success.

And so she lay there, staring out into the dark, endless abyss which all blind people see. Thinking, mulling over the day she'd had. She'd woken up feeling ill that morning, but didn't care to seek advice over it, instead preferring to lay where she was comfortable. Only when someone had come in to alert them of Anya's similar condition, was she told what was truly the matter.

It was weird to think about. This was the sort of thing she had run from at thirteen. Told for half her life this was all she'd amount to, if that. Very nearly forced into it that young. And yet, somehow she knew it would happen eventually either way. It wasn't the only terrible thing the old pack had done. They were racists, they were sexists, they were elitists about their status as Garou in a way that no one here was, at least not to such a degree. That was why she ran. But, she thought, look at her. Trying to rationalize this.

Here she was, gotten herself pregnant by a Garou anyway. She didn't know what to make of it. In a certain sense, she was amazed it hadn't happened sooner. There wasn't a single time she could think of where they bothered with protection. The honest truth was that they couldn't afford it, either of them. For the longest time they lived by stealing shit from passersby, all while living in a washing machine box, and it was still only barely enough to get by.

Maybe it was for the best that it happened now, when they were safe in a cabin, instead of then. She still didn't know if she even wanted it, but she could feel the expectations of the sept and the nation weighing heavy on her shoulders. They were very big on parenthood, and the sorts of things she was thinking about would be frowned upon. It probably wasn't even a concept to a lupus like him.

She loved him, dearly, with all her heart. The thought of him, of the both of them, was enough to get her to smile, and she was someone who didn't usually have a lot to smile about. Even now, with this dumped on her, the feeling of his fur against her brought her the slightest bit of ease. She knew she was loved in return, as well, by the two of them. But that raised more questions still. Did he want this? And if he did, what if something happened?

She thought back to the mother she had lost so long ago. Twenty years, now. She had died in childbirth, and for what? The baby didn't make it either. Just thinking about it put her back in the shoes of the terrified little kinfolk, already a disappointment to the tribe she had been dragged into because she hadn't come with a kinfetch. And as suddenly as she started thinking about it, a different sort of dread began to set in. What if the same thing happened to her? What if it happened to Anya?

The train of thought was derailed when she felt a cold nose press against the side of her face and heard the whines of a concerned wolf. Shortly thereafter, the fur turned to scruff and skin.

“Are you alright, Middy..?”

“I'm... I'm fine.” It was a lie, and she knew it was a lie. Apparently, though, so did he, because she soon felt the brush of his face against hers.

“You can tell me, you know.”

“It's... about this, I guess... this whole thing.”

“The pup?”

“...Yeah. The pup...”

“What about it..?”

“...I'm scared. I'm scared to death.”

“Why?”

“I never told you how I lost my ma, did I? It was... this. It was exactly this. She died in childbirth, and.. and what if the same thing happens to me..?”

Things fell silent again. She felt herself pulled close. There really wasn't anyone she could talk to about this. She barely knew most of these people, and even if she did talk to them, what would they say? They'd tell her she aught to be ashamed for even thinking the things she thought, she figured. That's what they all would say, at least in her experience. She didn't even think she'd make a very good parent, but she also knew she was hard-pressed to back out now. Maybe it was all wrong, all this thought. Maybe it would be fine.

But then, she didn't know if she wanted to get rid of it, either.

She had a lot of thinking to do.